The Spey blade.

[Jack Black]

"Can you call a Spey, a Spey"?

Very good Charlie! If we ever get the chance to meet up, we, should easily be able to clear a pub!

Interesting to see those grafting/budding knives, makes total sense, I'd never really thought of that before.

I'm not a particular fan of the spey, but geldings for courses eh?

 

[waynorth]

Haw haw! Very Punny!!
There is more than one way to get a space at the bar, eh Jack?

 

[pertinux]

As you can see, many main companies are represented; Case, Schrade, Camillus and Remington.

My goodness, a fine array (even in haste!).

Out of these pictured, the knife to the far left and the one second from the right would be "full-sized" (in proportion to their respective handles), yes? What about the wood-handled Case knife fourth from the left-- is there a blade on the opposite end, or is it a hefty-handled single-blade knife?

(Lots to see and think about, here.)

How long is the knife on the left? I've never seen anything like it; it looks more like a scimitar than a spey!

My primary take-away is that a spey by any other name can scrape ink and graft buds, perhaps even sweetly.

~ P.

 

[justsomedude]

I've grown to like a two blade configuration, a longer blade, ground thin with lots of belly for food prep and a smaller, pointy secondary for opening packages and other random tasks. For this reason I lean towards a Spear primary and wharncliffe/sheepsfoot/coping secondary.

Another important factor for me is how proud the blades are for both comfort and aesthetic reasons. For this reason I often lean towards a shorter secondary like a coping blade. This is also why I'm fine with a pen secondary as they usually are very not-proud when closed. This is also why I often will accept a clip main instead of a spear.

Most importantly this is where I see the value in a main spey blade: It has the belly and thin grind I like but they tend to sit much less proudly than a spear. I am very interested in Charlie's upcoming Barlow mainly because the spey rides so low when closed. If he made one with a coping secondary it could be a contender for my dream knife.

BTW Charlie, the Diamond Jack was as close to perfect as possible and is currently my favorite knife by a long shot, thank you for that. I'm looking forward to the upcoming barlow!

PS I think a Spey main, coping secondary pattern would be really cool and unusual if anybody out there with the capitol for an SFO is listening

 

[VictorLouis]

I´m not a big fan of that blade shape. Especially when there´s just a small speyblade on a stockman pattern.

I had a local dealer explain to me that the stockman evolved FROM the cattleman, where what is now a spey WAS an awl. Any truth to that?

 

[Jack Black]

Haw haw! Very Punny!!
There is more than one way to get a space at the bar, eh Jack?

Too true Charlie :thumbup:

 

[deskil]

I admire the shape of this spey blade and find that it has few limitations.

 

[OHALLUM]

Before I started carrying my #6 Opinel, I carried a Stockman, and the spey blade got all the abuse and use for most cutting jobs. I used it and kept the other blades sharp and ready to step in when needed, which was seldom except when I needed a sharp point for something special. Just a habit I got into with no idea why I chose the spey over the warncliff. My grandfather used his spey to cut open pecans and cut a plug of tobacco to chew. Maybe that is why I chose the spey for my "user" blade.

Blessings

Omar

 

[NoNameNomad]

While i don't care a bit for spey as a second blade(only one on Case trapper i converted somehow into spear ),something like this makes me google

I can't figure out what brand this knife is, but it's very nice. Schatt & Morgan?

 

[LEOGREG]

[/IMG]
My one and only Spey, sharpened to 8000 grit on a Japanese water stone.
Among the many virtues of the Spey shaped blade that has not been mentioned, is the fact that you needn't worry about rounding the tip when sharpening. ;-)

 

[NoNameNomad]

That looks like a very useful blade. It also looks more like a full sie version of a pen blade to me rather than a spey, but very nice

 

[will1551]

Quite frankly I have never understood why it is called a spay blade. My family runs a cattle operation and i can not see a situation where spaying anything would be beneficial. Once spayed an animal can no longer produce offspring or milk. Furthermore removing the ovaries/uterus from an animals abdomen is not something I'm likely to undertake with a non-sterile instrument like a pocket knife and no sedation/anesthesia. Every cattleman I know uses the marking blade for castration and ear marking because it has a blunt tip that's less likely to poke something/ someone while that critter is wriggling around begging for his cods to be saved. The straight edge also cuts well and is easy to sharpen up in a hurry so you don't slow up progress as much, which makes a big difference when you are working 150-200 head at a time. Spay blade is used for things i dont want to do with my good blades.

 

[LEOGREG]

That looks like a very useful blade. It also looks more like a full sie version of a pen blade to me rather than a spey, but very nice

My poor pic doesn't show it but if you look closely at the shadow you can see the blunted tip of a Spey.
The previous owner evidently loved not well but too much ;-) both blades were sharpened many times resulting in a fair amount of steel loss, making both narrower than they were when they left the factory. Forgive the cliche, but it still slices like a dermatome.

Yeah, what's with the Spey business Will? It's always been my understanding that Spey meant total abdominal hysterectomy, not castration.

 

[arizonaranchman]

Great thread, I just read through the entire thing - Whew! And coincidentally I just received my single spey Charlow today in the mail! I do have one other GEC with spey (a #73 Farmer SFO by Mike Latham) and like that one a lot. It's a favorite as a steak knife and for food prep. I don't find I need an actual POINTY point per se in my daily knife duties, so a spey does not leave me wanting for a pointy blade. I do have the Pemberton if I need a pointy blade as the Pemby is always my #2 EDC in the watch pocket.

One thing I notice immediately with this single spey folder is how LOW PROFILE it is when closed. The spey makes it very pocket friendly (for example I love the Sheepfoot blade but DON'T like how it rides so high up out of the handle when closed) and lends to a very sleek EDC when in the pocket.

Great thread and discussion!

 

[pertinux]

I don't find I need an actual POINTY point per se in my daily knife duties, so a spey does not leave me wanting for a pointy blade.

So far, that's been my experience as well.

I do have the Pemberton if I need a pointy blade as the Pemby is always my #2 EDC in the watch pocket.

I almost always have something else along, heh. The last two months it's been a sunfish in me back pocket.

One thing I notice immediately with this single spey folder is how LOW PROFILE it is when closed. The spey makes it very pocket friendly (for example I love the Sheepfoot blade but DON'T like how it rides so high up out of the handle when closed) and lends to a very sleek EDC when in the pocket.

I noticed that, too. Amazing to me, how well the blade fits into a now-familiar handle:

It's almost like carrying an empty knife handle around!

~ P.

 

[waynorth]

Quite frankly I have never understood why it is called a spay blade. My family runs a cattle operation and i can not see a situation where spaying anything would be beneficial. Once spayed an animal can no longer produce offspring or milk. Furthermore removing the ovaries/uterus from an animals abdomen is not something I'm likely to undertake with a non-sterile instrument like a pocket knife and no sedation/anesthesia. Every cattleman I know uses the marking blade for castration and ear marking because it has a blunt tip that's less likely to poke something/ someone while that critter is wriggling around begging for his cods to be saved. The straight edge also cuts well and is easy to sharpen up in a hurry so you don't slow up progress as much, which makes a big difference when you are working 150-200 head at a time. Spay blade is used for things i dont want to do with my good blades.

The intention, with the Spey blade I produced on the TC Barlows, was to harken to an old custom of offering a certain set of blades on inexpensive handles. I have no intention whatsoever of supplying the Cattle industry with an appropriate tool. I believe there is merely a misunderstanding of word usage here. The term spey refers to a blade with half the point blunted, to prevent unintended damage.
Spaying is a much more major operation, requiring surgical blades and equipment.


I have been informed that the term spay refers to female critters, and spey (with an "e") refers to males. Hence we call our blade a spey. It was used to make male beef cattle and other male animals less aggressive.
But there are also other uses, traditionally for such a blade.
Budding and Grafting (B&G), and, in older times, erasing ink were just two of the designated uses historically. B&G is still done today, and some of us spread marmalade with our speys!
Ink erasing disappeared with the invention of "Whiteout".

 

[arizonaranchman]

Sarah,

Yes I remember another post in which you made note of this and I agree, it's very sleek, almost concealed within the handle!

 

[JAlexander]

Quite frankly I have never understood why it is called a spay blade. My family runs a cattle operation and i can not see a situation where spaying anything would be beneficial. Once spayed an animal can no longer produce offspring or milk. Furthermore removing the ovaries/uterus from an animals abdomen is not something I'm likely to undertake with a non-sterile instrument like a pocket knife and no sedation/anesthesia. Every cattleman I know uses the marking blade for castration and ear marking because it has a blunt tip that's less likely to poke something/ someone while that critter is wriggling around begging for his cods to be saved. The straight edge also cuts well and is easy to sharpen up in a hurry so you don't slow up progress as much, which makes a big difference when you are working 150-200 head at a time. Spay blade is used for things i dont want to do with my good blades.

Cowboys used to spay heifers to make them put on weight, back when trail drives were the only good way to get your cattle to market. Nobody wanted cows calving on the drive, so spaying heifers made sense back in the open range days when men were building trail herds by throwing a brand on everything that didn't already have one. I don't think in my years of working cattle and hanging around cowboys, though, that I've ever heard of a modern rancher or spaying a heifer.

And to bring this back to knife content, what do you mean when you say marking blade? And what pattern do y'all use in your neck of the woods? Stockman?

 

[mykel m]

I have gotten to like the spey blade on my 80OT & old Imperial lately & since I can't afford one of the new Charlows or the Farm Boy, I modded an Opinel.
(good 'ol Opiinels are always affordable & fun to mod)
It started out as a 'My First Opinel' with the rounded butter knife tip & after a bit of elbow grease on various diamond hones I had a spey bladed Opi.
(too bad the MFOs only come in Inox,but it's still a slicing son of a gun)

Now where'd I leave that bull dang it........

 

[SAK Guy]

Cool mod! :thumbup: